USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 19
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Sullivan's rigorous measures have been severely criticised, but he had instructions from Congress to be severe. Washington's letter declared that " the immediate objects are the total destruction and de- vastation of their settlements." The country was not to be " merely overrun, but destroyed." In a letter to Laurens in September of this year, Wash- ington said : " The Indians, men, women and children, are flying before him [Sullivan] to Niagara, distant more than one hundred miles, in the utmost con- sternation, distress, and confusion, with the Butlers, Brant, and the others at their head."
After Newtown, Brant and Butler proceeded westward and northward, where reinforcements were secured, and another attempt to check the progress of Sullivan was determined upon. While the army lay near Little Beard's Town, Lieutenant Thomas Boyd with twenty-nine men, was sent out to make a reconnoissance. They were surprised by Brant, and fifteen of them were slain. One of these was Boyd himself, who died after the most frightful tor- tures had been inflicted. The full details are given by Stone, but I must forbear to repeat them. Brant was not responsible for this crowning atrocity. He was temporarily absent, and it has generally been
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felt that Colonel John Butler is to be blamed for not restraining the ferocity of the Indians. Among those who escaped were Timothy Murphy, the famous scout, and David Elerson.
?
When Sullivan finally departed from the country, the Indians returned to witness the desolate state of their ancestral homes-blackened ruins, with fields of corn and gardens overturned. Mary Jemison says there was not enough left to keep a child. Home- less now, in their own land, the Indians marched to Niagara, where, around the fort, the English built huts for them to pass the winter in. Owing to the severe cold, hunting became impossible that season ; so that they were forced to live on salted food, which produced scurvy, and hundreds of them died.
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PART VII
Last Years of the War 1780-1783
I
Schoharie and the Mohawk Laid Waste 1780
I N the work of the Sullivan expedition the grav- est calamity in their recorded history had over- whelmed the Iroquois. Of their civilization, indeed, little remained save the Iroquois themselves. But they were not to submit in despair. In the en- suing years of the war, they descended again and again upon the white man's frontier, leaving it at last quite as desolate as their own land had become. In Oriskany had been begun the Border Wars, but in Sullivan's expedition new and deeper bitterness was infused into the heart and soul of the Indian. Appalling ruin at their hands was now to overwhelm the settlements. But the Indians alone were not to bring on this desolation. Substantial co-operation came from the British.
Henceforth, indeed, the main war-scenes were to be found in the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys. Little remained to be destroyed on the upper Sus- quehanna. That region had become a land of silence and desolation. Its houses were in ruins ; its people had fled ; its soil had been given up to Nature's wild growths. Guarded as the Mohawk still was at Fort Schuyler, the Susquehanna re- mained a highway, however, by which the Indians
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and Tories could most safely reach the settlements lying north and east.
Sullivan had scarcely returned to the seaboard when complaints were made from the Mohawk Val- ley of Indians who " eat our provisions whilst they watch to cut our throats." Several persons had been murdered and scalped in October of this same year. On October 20th scouts brought word that Fort Schuyler was threatened. Sir John Johnson was said to be on his way with a thousand Indians, besides a large body of regular troops supplied with heavy cannon. While the regulars attacked the fort, the Indians were to ravage the Mohawk Val- ley .* Nothing came of this report in 1779, but in the following year it was amply confirmed.
The enemy did not even wait for spring to open before beginning the work of retaliation. In the month of February, when there was fine snow-shoe weather, a small force reached German Flatts, where one woman was killed and three were wounded. In March a party of thirty, also on snow-shoes, invaded a settlement north of Palatine, killed one person, made several prisoners, and burned some buildings. They were painted after the fashion of Indians, but were supposed to be Tories. Early in April, Indians were hovering about Fort Schuyler. Scouts were sent out to watch them in seven different places. Brant, himself, came on from Niagara and during the same month, with forty-three Indians and seven Tories, reached Harpersfield, where he surprised Captain Alexander Harper in a " sugar-bush."
Harper was approached as he was bending over to adjust his snow-shoes. When holding his toma- hawk in the air above Harper's head, Brant discov-
* Clinton Manuscripts.
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MINISINK REVISITED
ered for the first time who the man before him was. " Ah, Captain Harper," said he, " is it thee ? I am sorry to find thee here." " Why are you sorry, Captain Brant ? " asked Harper. " Because I must kill thee," answered Brant. Harper remarked there was " no use in killing those who submitted peace- ably." Brant then having had Harper bound as a prisoner, attacked the settlement at Harpersfield and burned it. Three men were killed and eight were made prisoners, the party proceeding across the hills to the head of the Delaware. From camp Harper wrote to his wife that Brant " uses me and all those taken along with me exceeding well." Brant had assured him that an exchange of prisoners could be " easily obtained," providing the Americans were willing to co-operate in the matter.
With other prisoners, Harper was taken to Ni- agara, where he spent many months in captivity. Patchin, in his narrative of the journey as given to Priest, says that " from this place [Cookoze] we crossed through the wilderness, over hills and moun- tains the most difficult to be conceived of, till we came to a place called Ochquago, on the Susque- hanna River, which had been an Indian settlement before the war. Here they constructed several rafts out of old logs, which they fastened together with withes and poles passing crosswise, on which, after untying us, we were placed, themselves managing to steer." Aboard these rafts the party proceeded to Tioga Point and thence by land to Niagara.
While at Oghwaga Brant invaded the Ulster dis- trict. Houses were burned, farms plundered, and captives taken. Brant also sent out a detachment of eleven warriors to seize prisoners in Minisink. Five men were taken. At night, when the Indians were
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asleep, one of the men freed his hands and feet of the cords that bound them and released his four companions. Seizing each a tomahawk they killed nine of the eleven Indians and wounded one, the survivor making good his escape. The Minisink men then returned to their homes. When the sur- viving Indian had joined the party of Brant and nar- rated this tale, Brant's men became mad with desire for revenge. Their knives and hatchets had been made ready for the slaughter of Harper and his com- panions when the surviving Indian, who was a chief, rushed upon the scene and stayed their hands. He declared that these white men had not killed the Indians and to murder innocent men would offend the Great Spirit. Stone lauds this conduct as "a noble action, worthy of the proudest era of chivalry," and regrets that " the name of this high-souled war- rior is lost." That sentiments of this kind had been fostered by Brant there is no doubt. He wrote from the Delaware, on April 10th of this year, addressing his enemies :
That your Bostonians (alias Americans) may be certified of my conduct towards all those whom I have captured in these parts, know that I have taken off with me but a small number. Many have I released. Neither were the weak and helpless subjected to death, for it is a shame to destroy those who are defenceless. This has been uniformly my conduct during the war. These being my sentiments you have exceedingly angered me by threatening or distressing those who may be considered as prisoners. Ye are (or once were) brave men. I shall certainly destroy without dis- tinction, does the like conduct take place in future .*
A month later alarming intelligence came once more into the Mohawk valley. A messenger brought
* Brant MSS. in the Draper collection.
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THE MOHAWK LAID WASTE
word that a vessel had sailed from Niagara with 100 men under Butler and a small number of regular troops. Brant had also sailed with 300 of his war- riors. Both forces had landed at Oswego, where they were joined by 150 other men. It was said that Sir John Johnson was to attack his old home at Johns- town as well as Stone Arabia, and that Brant was to follow with an attack on Canajoharie. Another re-
port was that troops to the amount of 5,000, com- posed of Indians, regulars, and Tories, would attack Fort Schuyler. South, from Canada, by way of Lake Champlain, came Sir John in May of this year with 500 men, of whom 200 were Indians and To- ries, the others British troops, and Sir John's Royal Greens.
Sir John's destination was the Mohawk region in which he had spent his early life, and he was ulti- mately to visit the home of his father at Johnstown. At Tribes Hill houses were plundered and some of them burned. The home of Colonel Vissher was then attacked, three brothers being scalped and the house burned. For twelve or thirteen miles the valley was traversed, forty prisoners being taken. Stone says, every building not owned by a loyalist was burned, sheep and cattle were killed and horses taken away for the use of the army. Nine old men, four of them being upward of eighty, were slain, and in Caughnawaga the only building that escaped destruction was the church.
Sir John, on arriving at his father's home, made the house his head-quarters, the prisoners being guarded in an open field. He had not visited this home since his abrupt departure in 1776, four years before. Stone describes how he caused to be dug up the family silver, which had been buried in the
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cellar. It filled two barrels and was divided among forty of his soldiers, who carried it back to Montreal. Meanwhile, militiamen led by Colonel Harper, who from Fort Hunter had witnessed the burning of Caughnawaga, and by Colonel Volkert Veeder ar- rived, but as Tories had joined Sir John until his forces numbered 700 or 1,000 men, or twice their own, they were unable to engage him. Governor Clinton, hearing of the invasion, sent a force to in- tercept Sir John on his return by way of Lake Cham- plain, but Sir John eluded his pursuers and made his way safely back to Canada.
The arrival of Butler and Brant on the south side of the river was not long delayed. By the middle of May they had appeared on the upper Mohawk. On June 10th a party of twenty Indians burned houses and took prisoners at German Flatts. An- other party invaded Schoharie and conveyed several prisoners down to Unadilla. By July Ist reports came from many settlements that Indians were hov- ering about them. Fort Schuyler was in distress for want of provisions. At the Schoharie forts, outside the local militia there were only eighty men to de- fend them .* Block-houses, meanwhile, had been erected for the protection of women and children. Farmers ploughed their fields and gathered their crops assembled in companies. They kept their rifles near at hand and sent out scouts to watch for the ap- proach of the enemy.
Late in July 600 Indians and 200 white men, led by Brant and a British officer, appeared at Fort Schuyler and killed several horses. They cut off communication between the fort and German Flatts, and captured fifty-three prisoners. This movement
* Clinton MSS.
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THE MOHAWK LAID WASTE
is understood to have been a feint. After Sir John's departure, Governor Clinton had sent General Gan- sevoort with a mass of stores to Fort Schuyler, and Brant caused it to be made known that he intended to take the Fort. This induced the sending forward of men for its defence from the lower valley, leaving that region unprotected. Brant meanwhile quietly slipped down the Unadilla River, and thus his ap- proach to Canajoharie by the Susquehanna route was in danger of no opposition.
Early in the year Brant had contemplated this invasion of his early home, he and Sir John being thus actuated by similar enterprises, but for some cause he had deferred it until midsummer. The attack on Canajoharie was finally made on August 2d. There were 450 Indians with him. He killed fourteen persons, burned nearly all the houses, capt- ured fifty or sixty prisoners, took three hundred head of cattle, horses and pigs, and burned more than one hundred houses and barns, one church, one mill, two forts, and a quantity of farm tools. Colonel Clyde reported that all this happened " at a very unfortunate hour, when all the militia of the country was called up to Fort Schuyler to guard nine battoes about half loaded."
This destruction, combined with other work done by Brant during the expedition, resulted in the kill- ing of twenty-four persons and the capture of sev- enty-three prisoners. The destruction of Canajoharie was over before militia arrived from Schenectady and Albany. Indians alone were in the expedition. Brant's route led him now to the head of the Dela- ware, where he wrote to one of the Schoharie officers :
I understand that my friend Hendrick Nuff and Cook is taken prisoners near at Esopus. I would be glad if you
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would be so kind as to let those people know that took them not to use my friends too hard, for if they will use hard and hurt them, I will certainly pay for it, for we have several rebels in our hands makes me mention this, for it would be disagreeable to me to hurt my prisoners. There- fore I hope they will not force me .*
Adam Crysler, went to Vroomansland in Au- gust, under orders, he said, from Sir John Johnson " to proceed with a party of Oughquagos, etc., to Schoharie where I had a skirmish with the Rebels ; took five scalps, two prisoners, and burned some houses and barns." After these disasters General TenBroeck wrote to Governor Clinton that "the most opulent parts of Tryon County, Stone Arabia excepted, had fallen beneath the invader."
* Clinton MSS
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II
Sir John and Brant Return
A UGUST had not passed before word arrived of a new invasion. It was said that Sir John intended to strike Stone Arabia, and that 2,000 men were coming with him. Early in Sep- tember sixty-five of the enemy attacked Fort Day- ton, and small parties were hovering about elsewhere. Sir John's new enterprise was destined to become memorable. Primarily it was an expedition of Brit- ish origin and has been thought to have been con- nected with Arnold's treason, that last attempt to secure control of the Hudson valley. Sir John, it has been understood, had knowledge of Arnold's purposes, Arnold having been in treasonable cor- respondence with the British for probably a year before his designs were discovered. By this in- vasion, at any rate, it was hoped that Sir John would attract a force away from West Point, making it more easy for the British to gain possession of the Hudson. He was already far advanced on his way when the treason of Arnold was laid bare in the capt- ure of André at Tarrytown.
Another motive for the expedition was the demor- alizing effects produced by the Sullivan expedition among British sympathizers in Tryon County. Seri- ous doubts now began to possess them as to Eng- land's success. They were showing a disposition to unite with the patriot party. Some of them had
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gone so far as to swear allegiance to Congress, fear- ing extermination if they did not do so. It was Sir John's hope that he might restore this lost confi- dence.
At Painted Post, or Tioga Point, were probably collected the Indian forces, now much enlarged in their numbers, and with the famous Seneca warrior called the Corn-Planter * co-operating with Brant. They marched thence to Unadilla and here, prob- ably, were joined by the forces which Sir John had gathered and brought on by way of Buck Island, and thence by Oswego, Oneida Lake, and the Una- dilla River. Hough remarks, that many of the men " were intimately acquainted with the topography of the country through which they were to pass, having formerly resided in the valley."
One estimate places the total number after the junction was made at 1,500, while another says it was 2,000. Governor Clinton reported to Wash- ington that Sir John had 750 picked British troops, besides Brant's corps of Indians and Tories. Hear- ing of the approach of the expedition, the Tryon County committee reported that " it would be in the power of the enemy to destroy almost all the grain collected, besides the rest of the settlements yet
standing." Colonel Harper was sent out to watch Sir John's approach, and Timothy Murphy pro- ceeded as far as Unadilla with a scouting party under Sergeant Lloyd, among whom were B. C. Vrooman, William Leek, and Robert Hull.
From Unadilla the expedition proceeded into Schoharie by the well-worn route to the mouth of
* The Corn-Planter was a half-breed noted for his eloquence. At one time he was a rival of Red Jacket, the Seneca chief, whose gifts in pub- lic speaking won for him the name of Keeper-Awake.
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SIR JOHN AND BRANT RETURN
the Charlotte and thence followed that stream to Summit Lake making camp on the south side .* Crossing the dividing line beyond the lake the ex- pedition passed on to what is now Middleburgh, where were fifty local militiamen, and a garrison of 150 other state troops, possessed, however, of only a few rounds of powder for each man. About 500 men began the siege, which was stoutly resisted.+- Meanwhile, the enemy plundered and burned the settlements.
Failing to subdue the fort the expedition began a desolating march down the Schoharie Valley, burn- ing and otherwise destroying everything it found on the way. Horses and cattle were taken and nothing escaped the invaders except the homes and property of loyalists. Only two men were killed and one wounded at the fort, but the number of unprotected inhabitants killed is said to have reached 100. Schoharie had never seen finer fields of grain than those which Sir John destroyed. It was one of the most prosperous regions on the frontier. Few log houses remained there, good frame structures having supplanted the ruder dwellings of an earlier time. Arrived at Fort Hunter the desolating work
* The authority for this statement is William E. Roscoe, of Carlisle, who learned the facts from a man named Monk, son of a Tory who took part in the expedition.
t Of this Schoharie invasion, Stone relates the following incident : " One of the farmers on that day, while engaged with his boys in un- loading a wagon of grain at the barn, hearing a shriek, looked about and saw a party of Indians and Tories between himself and the house. 'The enemy, my boys !' said the father, and sprang from the wagon, but in attempting to leap the fence, a rifle ball brought him dead upon the spot. The shriek had proceeded from his wife, who, in coming from the garden, had discovered the savages, and screamed to give the alarm. She was struck down by a tomahawk. Her little son, five years old, who had been playing about the wagon, run up to his mother in an agony of grief, as she lay weltering in blood, and was knocked on the head and left dead by the side of his parent. The two other boys were carried away into Canada, and did not return until after the war."
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was continued. All that Brant had left of Caughna- waga was destroyed. The invaders then passed to the westward, spreading ruin in their path, until, says Stone, " both shores of the Mohawk were lighted up by the conflagration of everything combustible, while the panic-stricken inhabitants only escaped slaughter or captivity by flight."
Back from the river at Palatine stood the ancient settlement of Stone Arabia guarded by a small stockade. Militia were sent forward to protect it, and re-enforcements were to follow. But these did not come and the others were overpowered after forty or forty-five of them had been slain, including Colonel Brown, one of the bravest men on the frontier, who in the Burgoyne campaign had dis- tinguished himself by liberating 100 American prisoners and making prisoners of nearly 300 of the enemy. The survivors took to flight, whereupon everything in that neighborhood fell a victim to the destroyer. Laden with plunder Sir John pushed on to Klock's Field, three miles to the west. Here ensued a battle, General Robert Van Rensselaer hav- ing come up the river with 1,500 men, a force su- perior to Sir John's. After a brief battle, the enemy closely pressed took to flight. Colonel Dubois wished to pursue them, but General Van Rensselaer ordered his forces to retire in order to find a better place for a bivouac, night being at hand.
This action on the general's part has been much condemned, as it was condemned at the time by his subordinates. Stone says it was learned from one of the prisoners that at the time the retreat was ordered Sir John was ready to capitulate. When morning dawned the enemy were nowhere in sight. General Van Rensselaer set out in pursuit. He
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KLOCK'S FIELD
sent forward from Fort Herkimer a force to over- take Sir John and promised to follow himself, but this he failed to do. Meanwhile, another force, which he had ordered out from Fort Schuyler to oppose Sir John made an advance, but while en- gaged at dinner, was surprised by Brant and every man was captured-two captains, one lieutenant, eight non-commissioned officers, and forty-five pri- vates. No obstacle impeding his flight, Sir John pushed on to the westward .*
On leaving the Mohawk Valley Sir John had crossed the head waters of the Unadilla River ac- companied by Brant, who was suffering from a pain- ful wound in the heel. Seeing an American officer among the prisoners, Brant, from sudden impulse, is said to have tomahawked him. On being remon- strated with he said he was sorry he had not con- trolled himself while in pain, but the heel felt better since he had done this deed.t-
At Fort Plain one of Sir John's prisoners was John O'Bail (written also O'Beal, O'Ball, and Abeel), an old man, who in his youth had frequently lived among the Indians, and, by an Indian woman, had had a son who was the Corn-Planter. Just beyond Fort Plain, the Corn-Planter said to him : " If you
* It should be stated here that a Court of Inquiry into the conduct of General Van Rensselaer convened in March of the following year and ex- onerated the General. Among the Clinton MSS. are its findings, filling forty-eight folio pages. It unanimously gave the opinion that " the whole of Gen. Van Rensselaer's conduct both before and after, as well as in, the action of October 19th, was not only unexceptionable, but such as became a good, active, faithful, prudent, and spirited officer,-and that the public clamours to his prejudice on that account are without the least foundation."
t Weld's Travels in America. The reader will note that this incident is inconsistent with Brant's assertion that he had never killed more than one man in cold blood-the man whom he killed when he supposed the man had lied to him. The author has found no confirmation of Weld's story in other writings.
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now choose to follow the fortunes of your yellow son, and to live with us people, I will cherish your old age with plenty of venison and you shall live easy ; but if it is your choice to return to your friends and live with your white children, I will send a party of my trusty young men to conduct you back in safety ; I respect you, my father." O'Bail decided to re- turn to his white children.
Elsewhere on the frontier considerable alarm ex- isted through the autumn of this year. An expedi- tion had, indeed, come down from the north under Colonel Carleton and had burned Ballston. Sara- toga and Stillwater expected to be attacked. St. Leger was known to be on Lake Champlain with a large force. An Oneida Indian, in December, brought word to the Mohawk Valley that, in the following year, Schenectady would be destroyed. There was much suffering that winter at Fort Schuyler. Food was scarce, and many of the garri- son were so badly clothed that not more than twenty were fit to be sent out on foraging expeditions.
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III
Colonel Willett Expels the Invaders
178I
T HE year in which Cornwallis surrendered brought to the frontier drastic and successful measures for its defense. Colonel William Butler had, it is true, destroyed the two Indian head-quarters at Unadilla and Oghwaga, but he re- turned from the Susquehanna Valley as soon as that work was done, and six weeks later the savages and Tories poured into Cherry Valley, burned its houses and massacred its people. And so with General Sullivan. He overturned every sign of Indian civ- ilization that he found in western New York, only to return whence he had come and to be followed by the two expeditions of 1780 that spread desola- tion throughout the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys.
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